Super Boats: 5 New Designs Go Fast, Far—Even Fly! (With Videos)

So here we are, skimming over the bright blue Mississippi on a flawless summer afternoon--the river broad, the sun taking on a tinge of gold as it settles toward the green canopy of the Iowa shore. We're doing about 50 mph, smooth as melted butter, when I realize that we're headed straight for a low island covered in 4-ft.-high clumps of purple flowers.

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The guy at the controls, a 29-year-old race driver named Bill Zang, has no intention of turning away. In fact, he opens the throttle. As the engine deepens its roar, he pulls back on the control stick, and we rise up off the water, barely clearing the island undergrowth that ­rushes beneath our seats.

The craft that Bill Zang is piloting, an $85,000 UH-18SPW Hoverwing, is obviously no ordinary watercraft. It's not even a boat exactly. At low speeds it's a hovercraft, skimming along like an air-hockey puck. But above a critical velocity of about 55 mph, its stubby wings generate enough lift to hoist it a few feet into the air.

When I saw videos of the Hoverwing in action, I was impressed. They showed the craft zipping over the water and leaping over logs. Even standing still, the Hoverwing had panache, with a stealthy gray paint job and Batmobile-sleek lines. I wanted to get in the cockpit and put it through its paces.

So I flew to Chicago and drove an hour northwest to the sleepy farm town of Harvard, Ill., home of the Universal Hovercraft factory. The company was founded in 1971 by Zang's uncle, Bob Windt, a former aeronautical engineer with McDonnell Douglas. For years Windt sold hovercraft plans and parts directly to homebuild customers--placing ads in Popular Mechanics and other magazines.

Today his company also offers two prebuilt models for commercial and government use, such as security patrols and search-and-rescue work. The craft are assembled in a former farm equipment factory on the edge of the railroad tracks. On the day of my visit a team of workers are finishing the plywood hull of a pair of small hovercraft sold to South Korea for patrolling inland waters.

The Hoverwing has the potential to expand the company's business into a new range of operating environments. The most significant interest has come from the Navy, which is eyeing the vessel for its ability to access coastlines without telltale wake or radar signatures.

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Windt's float-and-fly hybrid is part of a new wave of amazing watercraft that are making their debuts on America's lakes, rivers and beachfronts. Utilizing revolutionary propulsion and hull forms, these wild boats offer new ways to move over, through and under the water.

For the past 50,000 years, the monohull has served mankind well. "It was the primary means of transportation," says legendary yacht designer Rod Johnstone. "Monohulls can be made with a large carrying capacity and can operate full or empty in a lot of different loadings."

But, of course, humans have to tinker, and even the earliest mariners tried to improve this basic configuration. Some 2000 years ago, boat builders in the South Pacific added outriggers to their canoes, creating an early form of the catamaran. By the 10th century the Vikings had developed the dual-purpose longboat: a wide beam for stability on the high seas, and a shallow draft for coastal and river raids.

More recently, designers have tried to get the hull into the air, thereby lowering resistance to forward motion. In 1908 a team led by Alexander Graham Bell built the first hydrofoil, which used hull-mounted struts to generate lift, raising part of the boat out of the water. The hovercraft, patented by British engineer Sir Christopher Sydney Cockerell in 1955, elevates the hull on a cushion of air.

Zang and Windt extended this concept by putting wings on their hovercraft, taking advantage of the phenom­enon of ground effect. As a wing moves through the air, it trails vortexes from its tips that create drag. Within half a wingspan or so of the ground, these vortexes can't form, so an aircraft is able to fly with increased efficiency. If you've ever watched a cormorant skim across the surface of a lake, you've seen ground effect in action.

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To fly up out of ground effect requires extra power. In the case of the Hoverwing, the engine is too weak to do the job, so the watercraft can never break free into true flight. The name for this type of craft is Wing-in-Ground Effect, or WIG. Because WIGs don't really fly, the Federal Aviation Administration doesn't consider them to be aircraft. You don't need a pilot's license to fly one. In fact, the Hoverwing is registered in Illinois as a boat.

WIG craft are theoretically capable of high efficiency, thanks to their low drag. Over the course of the past century, inventors have tried to perfect a commercially viable model. Five years ago, Boeing drew up plans for a massive transport called the Pelican that would have a wingspan of 500 ft.--yet fly just 20 ft. above the ocean. All such attempts, however, ran into some basic limitations. For one thing, when you're flying a WIG, you're never more than a few feet away from, at best, an unplanned landing and, at worst, an outright crash.

Windt's home lies 2 hours west of the hovercraft fac­tory, in Cordova, on the banks of the Mississippi. The avuncular 66-year-old's house overlooks an algae-choked slough and a yard cluttered with hovercraft in various stages of assembly and disrepair. A half-dozen teenage boys wander around shirtless in the July swelter, tinkering with their ma-chines--think Junkyard Wars meets Lord of the Flies.

The Hoverwing I climb into is clearly a prototype, and cruder than for-sale models. Sleek and streamlined on the outside, the foam-and-fiberglass hull is bare-bones on the inside. The bucket seats are lightweight plastic, like what you'd find in a grade school auditorium, and an aluminum wing spar extends through the cabin at my feet.

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Shape Shifter: Proteus

It looks like a giant water-strider bug, and for good reason: The 100-ft.-long Proteus, launched in 2006 at a cost of $1.5 million, operates on a similar principle, gliding over the surface instead of pushing through it.

The craft's creator, engineer Ugo Conti of California-based Marine Advanced Research, dubs his concept the Wave Adaptive Modular Vessel, or WAM-V. As the ship moves over swells, the inflatable pontoons flex at joints while shock absorbers in the base of the spindly legs cushion the ride.

The concept has been put to the test: Since its launch, the prototype has logged some 3000 miles on the Atlantic, the Pacific and the Mediterranean. "You have a very shallow-draft vessel that has ocean-crossing capabilities," says chief engineer Mark Gundersen. Applications could include search and rescue, military transport to undeveloped beaches and shallow-water environmental monitoring.

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Sailing on Stilts: Bladerider X8

Sailors need a rudder and centerboard to maneuver their vessels. But why does the rest of the boat have to be in the water? The T-shaped foils of the Australian-designed Bladerider X8 lift the boat several feet above the surface at about 6 to 10 knots, enabling it to reach downwind speeds of more than 25 knots by reducing wave resistance.

The boat is as easy to capsize as it looks, so new owners should be prepared to get wet, says Peter Becker, who owns the first Bladerider delivered to the U.S. and serves as an unpaid company spokesman. "You're balancing on a pinhead," he says, but he adds that piloting the craft is addictive.

"I have several boats, but since I got this one, I haven't sailed in any other. And I don't want to." Bladerider International charges $17,200 for the 11-ft. boat, which was recently made available to international customers.

Funneling Foam: M Ship M40 Sportfisher

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What's missing from the hulls makes the boats of M Ship of San Diego unique. Twin channels above the waterline mix air (in orange) with water displaced by the hull to create a foam (dark blue) that lessens resistance to the hull, reducing drag and increasing speed and mileage. The aerated water also stabilizes the boat during turns and narrows the craft's wake. M Ship has implemented the concept in 8-ft.-long sailing dinghies, Venetian vaporetto ferries and even an 80-ft.-long stealth ship for the U.S. military. Latest to hit the market: the M40 Sportfisher, a 40-ft., $750,000 offshore-fishing boat. Cruising at 30 knots, the vessel can go 350 miles on a 300-gal. tank of fuel.

Like the product of some ungodly union between a dolphin and an F-16 fighter, the Seabreacher uses steerable winglike fins to maneuver on three axes. Power comes from an Atkins rotary engine that draws air through a snorkel, so the Seabreacher can't descend more than a few feet beneath the surface, and it can't stay below for more than 30 seconds.

Though the vehicles cost a relatively modest $70,000, don't expect to find hordes of riders tearing it up on crowded public waterways anytime soon. "It's like owning a monster truck," Innes says. "The Seabreacher will go through its paces at sanctioned racing events and sealed-off public waters."

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